Last Whisper (13 page)

Brooke dropped her tote bag on the couch and shook her head. “He’s not at all like Robert, Stacy. I sensed something off about Robert’s
romantic
interest in me from the beginning, which is part of why I could kick myself for continuing to date him. I should always listen to my instincts. But I don’t sense anything from Vincent except concern.”

“And attraction.”

“I didn’t notice any particular attraction to me on his part.”

“Then you’d better sharpen up those instincts, kiddo.” Stacy walked toward her, arms crossed over her substantial chest. “So why
did
you decide to come home tonight if it wasn’t to get away from Vincent?”

“Because his father has Alzheimer’s and my presence was disturbing the routine that helps keep him on course. Besides, Zach Tavell knew I was staying at the Lockhart
house anyway. Last night he was at the window, and today he sent a rose and a message.”

Stacy’s arms dropped and her eyes widened. “What rose and what message?”

Brooke turned back to her tote bag and began unpacking. “Oh, a florist delivered a white rose today,” she said casually. “Flowers for You was the name of the shop.”

“The
message
, Brooke. What did the message say?”

“ ‘Say hello to your mother for me.’ ”

Stacy’s jaw dropped.
“What?”

“Zach wanted to freak me out.”

“And did he?”

“I was a bit shaken at first,” Brooke returned offhandedly, determined not to mention her craven flight to the refrigerator for a beer-gulping episode after reading the note. “But when you think about it, the message wasn’t particularly clever.”

“It
wasn’t
?”

“No. It didn’t show a whole lot of imagination.”

“Well, either you’re a good actress or you have a cooler head than I do,” Stacy said. “I would have been a wreck if I’d gotten that note
with
a rose.”

“Jay would have calmed you down.”

“My husband is strong and smart, but he’s not omnipotent.” Stacy paused. “At least I really know him, though. Vincent Lockhart, however, is an unknown quantity. When you think of the kind of books he writes—”

“Which you love. And you’re certainly too bright to think that if people write about murder, they want to commit it.” Brooke stifled a yawn. “I’m tired although I’ve done exactly nothing today. I even had a nap.”

“It’s the strain. You need a good night’s sleep in your own bed with Jay and me nearby. As a matter of fact, I hear Jay opening our door now, finally home from work.” She patted Brooke on the cheek. “I’ll get out of your hair. You do whatever it is you do to relax and I’ll bet you’re having sweet dreams in a couple of hours.”

But at midnight, after Brooke had taken a long, soothing bath and a couple of aspirins for a headache that had thumped dully ever since the flower delivery, she lay wide-awake listening to sounds floating up from the street. Traffic was light for a warm, dry summer night. She heard a couple of teenagers yelling at each other on the sidewalk until a man opened a window and told them to shut up or he’d call the police. After the shouting stopped, Brooke rolled onto her side, tensed, waiting to hear her front doorknob turning or stealthy footsteps on the fire escape, or an evil little peck at her bedroom window. When the phone rang, she nearly screamed.

Brooke looked at the caller ID readout:
White Willows Nursing Home 555-7333
. She picked up the handset on the extra base by her bed. “Hello?”

“Miss Yeager?” Before Brooke could answer, the familiar voice of Mrs. Camp, a registered nurse at White Willows, rushed on. “It’s your grandmother. She’s just had a stroke. I happened to be passing the room, thank goodness. She’s alive, but I don’t know how severe the stroke was. We’re rushing her to Charleston Area Medical Center as we always do when a patient suffers a serious incident. You need to get there
now
.”

Brooke jumped out of bed, stripped off her nightgown, and slid into jeans and a T-shirt. She grabbed her purse and keys to her rented car, stepping into the hall, and dropped everything with a clatter. As she scrambled on the floor gathering the contents of her purse, running her hand around a shadowy corner where her keys seemed to be purposely eluding her, Stacy’s door opened. Jay stood tall and formidable, wearing only pajama bottoms, his short, sandy hair sticking straight up. “What’s going on, Brooke?” he asked sleepily.

“My grandmother has had a stroke. She’s at Charleston Area Medical Center. I’m on my way.”

Jay grew instantly alert. “Not by yourself. Come in here and wait. I’ll throw on some clothes and be ready to take you in five minutes.”

By now Stacy had appeared, half-dressed. “I heard what you said to Jay.”

“My keys,” Brooke said on the verge of tears. “I dropped them. I don’t trust that flimsy door lock, and I can’t shut the dead bolt from the outside without them.”

“Go in our apartment and sit down for a minute,” Stacy said firmly. “I’ll find them and lock up. Then I’m going with the two of you.”

“It’s late and you both have to work tomorrow—”

Stacy stepped into the hall, took hold of Brooke’s arms and pulled her to a standing position. “You are not going to go out by yourself and Jay and I can each make it through tomorrow without a full night’s sleep. Now take a couple of deep breaths, stop thinking the worst, and wait for us to drive you to the hospital. That’s what friends are for.”

After what seemed to Brooke like an eternity, they traveled through the nearly empty streets of Charleston, wound through a tangle of hallways at the hospital, and finally arrived at Greta Yeager’s room. Jay insisted on standing outside the hospital room while Stacy waited at the nurses’ desk. A nurse had said she would get the doctor immediately, but according to Stacy, “You can’t let up on these people for
one
minute or they’ll leave you waiting here half the night. You go see your grandmother and I’ll keep nagging until I get some action.” And so she would, Brooke thought with amusement in spite of her anxiety. These nurses had no idea exactly how maddeningly relentless Stacy Corrigan could be.

Brooke entered her grandmother’s room slowly, her heart pounding, her forehead damp with perspiration. Greta lay motionless on the narrow hospital bed. Brooke had expected to see her wired to a tangle of tubes and wires, but only a clear tube leading from a saline solution bag had been inserted into her arm. Her white hair was brushed back from her round face, that had always been healthily pink until the last stroke, three months ago, which had left it almost as white as her hair. Her breathing was shallow, and Brooke
saw that tonight’s stroke had drawn down the left side of her face.

She took her grandmother’s cool hand. “Grossmutter,” she said softly. “It’s me. BAnI.”

Her grandmother’s right eye opened slightly and shifted toward Brooke. She squeezed Brooke’s hand with her right hand. Apparently her right side had been unaffected by the stroke. “BAnI Brooke,” she managed in a slurred voice.

“Yes. BAnI. Bunny Brooke. Are you in pain?”

Greta slurred out another word that apparently started with an
n
, which Brooke accepted with relief as “no.” “I’m so sorry this happened,” she said lamely.

Her grandmother muttered a few unintelligible words, then shut her mouth and her eye from the strain. Brooke squeezed her hand again as she felt tears pressing against her own eyes. She would not cry, she told herself. If Grossmutter opened her eye to see the tears, they would only alarm her. Holding back her grief and fear was hard, though. Greta had suffered several strokes over the past two years, and even to Brooke’s untrained eye, this one appeared worse than the others had.

At last, Jay walked in and hovered above Brooke. “Stacy just told me the doctor would be here in a minute. She’s raised so much hell he’s afraid
not
to come as soon as possible.” He gave Brooke a tiny, tentative smile. “You know how tough my girl can be.”

“I’m so glad both of you came with me,” Brooke said. “I don’t think I could have handled this alone.”

“Neither of us would have dreamed of letting you come alone, even if there weren’t all this Zach Tavell business—”

Greta’s right eye snapped open. The right side of her face—the mobile side—jerked and contorted. Her hand gripped Brooke’s. “Z-Zhach,” she muttered in agitation. “Zhack Ta . . . Ta . . .”

“Jay was talking about Zach Tavell, Grossmutter, but Zack isn’t here,” Brooke reassured Greta.

The right side of Greta’s face twisted into a grimace. “No, not . . . h-here. Nurshing home.”

“No,” Brooke said. “Zach wasn’t at the nursing home.”

“Was!”
Greta insisted, her right eye filled with terror, her grip strong. “Come to my r-room. Zhack. Never forget him.
Teufel
!” Brooke ran through her rusty German vocabulary.
Teufel
—the Devil. “S-shaid . . . s-aid he come for you, BAnI,” Greta ground out. She gulped air and finally managed, “S-said he want
you
!”

Zachary Tavell had managed to break into White Willows Nursing Home to get to Greta, darling Greta who took care of me since I was eleven, and even before, Brooke thought. He’d done it to threaten me again, and look what he did to Grossmutter.

Brooke took a shaky step away from the bed. I am so frightened, she thought. I cannot allow myself to get so frightened. I might faint, whimper, or do something further to upset Grossmutter, who’s barely holding on to life. I must lower my horrified eyes, force my hand in hers not to tremble, and keep my voice steady. “I think you had a dream, Grossmutter,” Brooke said kindly.

That awful, fierce look blazed into Greta’s right eye again. “N-no. No d-d-dream. Real.” Saliva trickled down the right side of her chin and Brooke gently wiped it away. “Zhach real.
Real
!”

“Okay, okay,” Brooke said robotically. “He was real. Is that what made you . . . sick?”

A tear ran across the creases on Greta’s cheek. That was definitely a “yes.”

“Well, you’re not at the nursing home now,” Brooke said soothingly. “You’re in a different building with people all around. Even a policeman. The man standing beside me is Jay Corrigan. Do you remember him? My next-door neighbor, the detective? You can’t get much safer than having a detective in the room by your bedside. You just close your eyes and rest. We won’t leave you. Not for one minute.”

Slowly Greta’s grip on Brooke’s hand relaxed. Brooke took two steps back from her grandmother and turned to Jay. “Zach caused her stroke,” she said softly but urgently. “He was in the
nursing
home!”

Jay frowned. “Not necessarily. At White Willows do unfamiliar visitors have to sign in at a reception desk?”

“No. They lock the doors at eight in the evening. If anyone tries to enter or exit
any
one of the doors, an alarm goes off.”

“Do they conduct a bed check at night?”

“Yes. Even if a patient is well, they look several times an evening, and always around eleven, when it’s time to turn off the lights. A nurse just happened to be passing my grandmother’s room around twelve thirty and saw her having the stroke.”

Jay glanced at his watch. “It’s ten minutes ’til one and your grandmother was rushed here immediately. If the doors were locked at eight, someone checked on her at eleven, and she was obviously fine. Do you think Zach managed to hide in the nursing home from before eight until after midnight when that nurse saw Greta having the stroke?”

“He must have. Jay, they have a large and vigilant staff at White Willows, but Zach is a clever man. For heaven’s sake, he escaped from the penitentiary days ago and the police haven’t been able to catch him, even though he’s right here in Charleston. He came to Sam Lockhart’s house, and they
still
lost him!” She paused, realizing her voice had risen with her agitation. She said in what she hoped was a calmer tone, “Jay, I’m certain my grandmother
did
see Zach!”

“I wouldn’t be absolutely certain she saw anything,” said a slight, balding man entering the room, Stacy hot on his heels. “I’m Dr. Morris and I assume you are Mrs. Yeager’s granddaughter,” he said, extending a hand to Brooke.

“Yes. Brooke Yeager. And this is Jay Corrigan. He’s a homicide detective with the Charleston police. And the woman behind you is—”

“Stacy Corrigan. She informed me three times while I was at the nurses’ station,” the doctor said dryly.

“Well, you were needed in here and you were just standing around,” Stacy returned tartly.

“I was not just standing around, Mrs. Corrigan,” the doctor said edgily. “I was filling out charts and I do not move with the speed of light.” He looked at Brooke. “I’d like to talk to you about what we know of your grandmother’s condition at this point. Would you prefer to do so privately?”

“No. Stacy and Jay are good friends. There’s nothing they can’t hear.”

The doctor looked disappointed. Brooke could tell he wanted to get away from Stacy, who obviously set his teeth on edge, but he nodded resolutely. “Let’s go into the hallway. We don’t want to disturb Mrs. Yeager.”

He doesn’t want to say anything that might agitate her in case she’s only pretending to be asleep, Brooke thought, depressed. Maybe this doctor always looked solemn, but Brooke had a strong feeling he did not have good news to deliver.

The hallway seemed unusually cold to Brooke and she wrapped her arms around herself before the doctor began in his toneless, professional voice. “As I’ve already said, we haven’t had time to run all the tests we need to on your grandmother, Miss Yeager, so I don’t have a lot of information to give you at this point.”

“I understand,” Brooke said, feeling Stacy lightly place her own sweater over Brooke’s trembling shoulders.

The doctor cleared his throat and looked at her expressionlessly. “The stroke appears to have taken place on the right side of her brain. Oddly enough, the part of the body that is affected by the stroke is the opposite side of the brain
from which the stroke occurred. For instance, if the stroke happened on the left side of the brain, the right side of her body would be affected. In your grandmother’s case, the opposite has happened. I’m sure you noticed that the left side of her face is drawn down, and she speaks through the right side of her mouth.”